


Heart of Hearts

by Crave



Category: Captain America (Movies), Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alchemy, Blood, Fandom Trumps Hate, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-15
Updated: 2018-11-15
Packaged: 2019-08-24 05:20:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16633721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crave/pseuds/Crave
Summary: The blade swished again, this time coming right behind him and he had no choice but to throw himself back onto the ground, the dizzying pain as he hit the stone floor making bile rise up in his throat.He turned onto his back to face the blow. The armour was silhouetted over him like an avenging angel. Bucky raised the gun in one shaking hand.“Steve,” he said.





	1. A Stupid Idea

**Author's Note:**

> My fic for the fandom trumps hate event. This is a Full Metal Alchemist crossover AU that is... also a soul mate AU??? Contains more violence than I had in mind.
> 
> For those unfamiliar with FMA, in that universe you must obey the law of equivalent exchange. That is, to grain something you must give up something of equal value.
> 
> It is extremely taboo to perform alchemy on a person.

**Prologue**

It took a stupidly long time to track him down. What made it hardest were the echoes, the slightest sound bouncing off the smooth stone walls.

It made it surprisingly hard to find a giant metal suit of armor when almost every noise sounded like someone dropping a whole kitchen’s worth of saucepans onto the floor.

The near-darkness didn't help either, and neither did the heady formaldehyde smell that got into Bucky's head and gave him an instant headache.

Still, eventually the corridor narrowed and there were fewer paths to take that he hadn't already taken. He could feel the tension building in his jaw. The place was getting colder and the walls seemed damp, but there was no mildew or slime, so someone had to be cleaning them.

He could hear rushing water too, and a kind of generalised hum that could be coming from everywhere or just echoing from a particular place. It was infuriating, the way sound distorted.

Something creaked, louder than expected, and Bucky dropped and rolled just in time to avoid the blade sinking into his back, instead feeling it rip into his jacket and rake over him in a shallow, stinging swipe.

Bucky didn’t have a chance to get to his feet again before the blade came at him again. It was squarish kind of blade, like a hatchet, and maybe two feet long, but it was swung as lightly as though it were no heavier than a butter knife.

There wasn't really anywhere to go to escape except further in, which was probably why he was being attacked here in the first place. It didn't even really count as a trap, Bucky had walked right on into the tunnels looking for the guy.

Fuck. This had been a stupid idea.

Bucky grabbed for his gun. He knew was pointless to even try using it on a giant suit of metal but any attempt at surviving seemed better than nothing.

Every time he went for his holster the blade came down, forcing him further down the corridor, backing him against the walls, making him scramble across the floor and throw himself around blind corners.

The further in Bucky went, the more the near-darkness began transforming into true darkness, so that even if he weren’t walking half-backwards he'd still have no idea what was coming ahead.

All he could see were the two glowing red eyes behind the helmet, seeming to float in the dark.

At last the knife connected, catching him across the ribs with an awful crack and he felt the blood soak through his shirt, sticking it to his skin.

Through the sick shock of it he managed to duck out of the way of another swipe, and another, frantic and panicking but still feeling for the gun.

He got it into his hand just as the blade came at him again and managed to dodge without dropping it. Just having his hand on the grip was soothing in some way, got his head out of that frightened animal place.

Bucky fired right at the glowing red eyes and the flare of light out of the barrel was nearly blinding. He lurched to his feet, already feeling a little light headed from the pain but the shock of it was still numbing the pain.

He didn’t look back - just ran. He knew that if he tripped he couldn't get back up and that sooner or later he would trip. He heard the swish of the blade through the air and threw himself to the wall as best he could. It snagged the corner of his jacket but missed his skin.

He tried to move faster but he could barely keep it up for more than a minute, and now Bucky’s ribs and the gash across his chest were agony. He could feel that his whole shirt front was sticky and wet with blood.

The blade swished again, this time coming right behind him and he had no choice but to throw himself back onto the ground, the dizzying pain as he hit the stone floor making bile rise up in his throat.

He turned onto his back to face the blow. The armour was silhouetted over him like an avenging angel. Bucky raised the gun in one shaking hand.

“Steve,” he said.


	2. A Gate Opens

**Bucky**

One of the worst things was that it was spring. The trees were bent-double with blossoms. There were birds everywhere and the days were turning from short and sharp to slow and sweet. The air was coming alive with bees and trees unfurled their leaves in new and vibrant green. 

Steve had made it to spring but his hair was wet with sweat and plastered to his head and he stank. This fever was like nothing Bucky had ever seen before: Steve writhing with it, out of his mind.

Every time Bucky came near him with a cold cloth Steve would panic, limbs flailing, pupils shrinking and widening with each panicked breath.

Even when Bucky put his hands on Steve's soul mark at the back of his neck to comfort him it only seemed to calm him for a minute before he'd start fighting it, trying to get Bucky away.

Bucky had tried the hospital, and the doctor, and some local woman with a bunch of herbs, and he had cried into his own mother’s chest like a child, but none of it helped.

Right now Steve was sleeping in fits and starts. He hadn't eaten anything without throwing it up afterwards for weeks; Bucky could have wrapped his fingers around Steve's arm and the thumb and forefinger would have touched.

The window was open a crack to let the smell out and the curtains were drawn back. The clean spring sunlight deepened the shadows on Steve's face giving him a yellow, waxy look. Every now and then Steve's eyes would open and his breath would rattle.

Bucky lifted the cold cloth from Steve's forehead to check on the fever and found that Steve’s face was still painfully hot, like the skin over a bruise. Bucky tried to make him drink but it didn't come to much because Steve didn't want to swallow so it mostly just got water all over the blankets.

Bucky's breaking point came maybe an hour later. There was no particular thing. He'd managed to get Steve to use the bedpan, without much of a fuss this time, and he'd given him an unpleasant sponge bath, and put dressings on the bedsores.

Steve's mom used to do this part, the hard, practical, embarrassing things. Bucky had never seen Steve cry before Sarah died, now he saw it practically every day. Every time Steve pissed himself, or vomited onto the blankets, or Bucky lost it and snapped at him.

This time Steve was too far gone to cry, or to notice Bucky getting the chalk out of the art supplies. It took a minute to remember the right order of things and Bucky had to keep looking back through Steve's dad’s old books.

Water. Carbon. Ammonia. Lime. Phosphorus. Salt. Saltpeter. Sulfur…

He measured it all out as best he could from things around the house. It was easier than Bucky had expected to find everything, Steve’s dad had left a lot of his chemicals behind before he went off to the war and nobody had thrown them away. Soon he had enough to make Steve a new body with if he wanted it, a stronger body.

He drew the circle and gathered Steve together in his blankets, lowering him gently into the centre and onto the pile of dust.

Bucky stepped back out of the circle and laid his hands upon the earth, feeling its current alive in him.

The transmutation circle lit up under Bucky’s hands and the relief that it was working stayed with him for only a few seconds before turning to horror as the thing in the centre began to gather together into a seething mass.

Strange black ropes were pulling themselves out of the circle and wrapping themselves around Steve, and where they touched him they seemed to unravel him.

“Bucky!” Steve's eyes snapped open, mouth stretched wide, he looked helpless and terrified.

Bucky struggled to his feet, reaching for Steve, throwing himself into the circle, but there was nothing. Just chalk and dust and empty blankets. He scrambled frantically, gathering the sick-smelling wool into his arms.

He had gone utterly outside of his own head, or maybe so deep down in it he couldn't get out. Everything seemed muted and unreal and slow.

He needed to do something. Whatever he had offered for Steve's body hadn't been enough. It needed to be something better. In a burst of desperate terror he snatched the book he'd been using. He propped it open on the page he needed, blinking.

Looking at the blank space where his soul mark had been made his mouth fill with bile but he swallowed it back down.

He grabbed one of Steve's ink pens and copied the symbol as close as he could onto the skin, hoping whatever thing had bound them so far could help find Steve.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay.”

He tapped the small transmutation circle and it began to glow.

The black bands wrapped themselves around Bucky's arm, where Bucky's drawn-on soul mark was, and he felt himself being pulled away until he was standing in what looked like empty space.

In front of him stood a figure. The figure seemed blurred around the edges. It had no eyes but it appeared to be grinning through almost comically sized teeth.

“Who are you?” Bucky said it before he could stop himself.

“I have so many names. Sometimes I am called truth,” the creature said.

It took a single step closer and Bucky nearly pissed himself with fear.

“And sometimes I am god,” it continued. It took another step. “But I am also, you.”

Bucky had no idea what to say, he could barely breathe.

“You have knocked on my door, and now the door will open,” said the creature.

There was a noise behind him and Bucky turned, finding himself in front of a gate.

The gate was tall, maybe four times as tall as Bucky himself, and its edges met perfectly in the centre. It had a frame but no walls on either side and it was made from solid slabs of stone.

Its surface was carved with stars, and surrounding the stars were indents and ridges so that the surface of the door looked like plates on a suit of armour, overlapping each other in rippling lines like scales.

As Bucky stared, the doors of the gate began to swing open as if they were being pushed open from the inside.

There was nowhere to go. Bucky stood before the gate and it felt as if his own lungs were rising up in his throat and choking him. His chest felt brutally tight.

He could feel his heart pounding inside the cage of his ribs like a trapped bird.

Something white gleamed through the crack in the gate, growing larger and larger as the doors parted and Bucky could see a grey circle in the centre of the white, gleaming almost wetly. The grey swivelled around before stopping right in front of him, revealing the black disc in its center.

The moment he Bucky realised he was looking at an eye, was the exact same moment as the first of the black arms wrapped around his chest and began to drag him toward the gate.

He swung his arms, trying to fight his way free, and turned to beg the creature that had spoken to him, but he was alone now. Now it was just Bucky and the gate and the great grey eye, drawing him closer and closer until he was sealed inside.

* * *

**Steve**

He wasn't in pain. That was a first. Steve wasn't sure what else he was; all the signals coming from his body were messed up and he felt numb all over.

He tried to close his eyes but couldn't. His vision was framed on all sides, like he was looking through a mask, although he couldn’t feel his face to be sure.

Steve sat up and there was a kind of scraping, rattling noise as he moved. He seemed to move without any feeling in his body, just that horrible noise and a kind of eerie creaking.

He turned his head, although he couldn't feel his neck at all. The sun was low through the curtains and cast everything in a warm buttery glow.

“Bucky?” he asked, his voice came out without him seeming to open his mouth.

“Ssss…” there was a wet, hissing noise coming from below him and he looked down.

There was a thick, sludgy-looking puddle of blood on the floor and Bucky was lying in it. His arm was gone and his skin, where it wasn't streaked in red, was a pure and terrible white.

Bucky's lips parted.

“Ssss…”

Steve expected his heart to thud, and his hands to shake, and his stomach to churn but none of it happened. It was like his body and his mind had been severed.

“Bucky?” his voice should have trembled but it didn’t.

Bucky's eyes glazed over and Steve stared around, expecting his panic to drive him to do something, for his body to take control. When that didn't happen he got to his feet - shit he was taller now - and opened the apartment door.

“Help!” he called, “help! Please!” There was a strange echoing in voice, like Steve was standing in a tunnel.

No answer.

“ _Help!_ _Please!_ Bucky’s hurt!” Not being able to feel his throat made it easy enough to shout as loud as he wanted to.

That got a reply. Steve supposed he must have set off a few false alarms shouting in the middle of his fever.

Mrs Hannigan came down from upstairs and her mouth opened wide in surprise.

“Bucky’s done something terrible to his arm,” Steve said.

“Steven, why are you dressed like that?” asked Mrs Hannigan.

Steve raised his arm in front of his face and saw that it was covered in metal. He didn’t have time to process that.

“We've got to help Bucky,” Steve said, “he's bleeding. Please, he's hurt.”

It took a moment for her to reply, she didn't seem to want to go into the apartment with him.

“Please, can't you call an ambulance?” he pleaded.

She looked at him a moment, then nodded and went back up the stairs before Steve could get a real answer.

Steve wanted to be sure she would really call and he wanted to find out what was happening and he wanted for none of this to be happening at all but  didn’t have any time. Bucky had been lying there for God knew how long.

Heading back into the apartment, determined to focus on helping Bucky, Steve began to rifle through his chest of drawers until he found a belt.

He vaguely knew some first aid from his mother, and from Bucky's stories from the factories he'd worked in.

The sound Bucky made when Steve pulled the belt strap tight around the stump of his arm was horrible. A kind of wet hissing gurgle.

He wanted to put his arms around Bucky, to soothe him, to run his fingers over Bucky’s blood-sticky skin. But he didn't want to touch Bucky like that with his metal-covered hands, it seemed monstrous somehow.

Instead, he scrambled around for a clean cloth and wadded it up against the stump of Bucky's arm, holding it tight.

Steve had no idea how much time he sat there on the floor holding the balled up cloth against Bucky's arm.

Bucky's breaths were shallow and he seemed too out of it to hear anything Steve could say to him.

Steve couldn't close his eyes so he tried just bowed his head. He had no idea what was happening, or what had happened, or what to do, so he did what his mother would have done.

“Please Jesus let him live,” he prayed, “Please keep him safe until help comes and watch over him. If you...” Steve paused to try and make the words fit together. “If it's his time to go… If he has to… please take his pain, and keep him safe with you.”

The words felt as if they were being pulled out of him and it hurt so much to say them but the release of having said it made it bearable.

“I love him so much, please help him.”

Steve kept his head bowed, looking down at the floor and the blood seeping into the cloth. He couldn't feel anything in his body but he was still thinking and moving so he must at least have a soul. He hoped he had a soul.

The engine outside and the footsteps on the stairs went unnoticed, so Steve was surprised when the door opened and there were doctors behind it.

They gave him strange looks but then they saw Bucky and got to work. It was a whirlwind of questions Steve couldn't answer and Bucky limp and grey-white like marble and they said they would call Bucky's ma when they got to the hospital and then they were gone.

Steve thought about following but he had no idea what he could say to Bucky's family. One minute he'd been sicker than he'd been in his life, next Bucky was half dead and Steve's body had gone totally numb.

Mopping blood off the floor, Steve caught sight of twin red dots glinting in the water that seemed to track his eyes as they moved. If he could have felt anything it would have been dread.

Or rather, he felt the dread but there was nothing physical in it, as if it were trapped in his head and had no way to get out.

He opened the bathroom door and caught sight of his face at last in the cracked glass of their shaving mirror. Well not really his face. It was a helmet, as if from a suit of armor, made of a fairly dull metal.

Instead of eyes he had two red circles like embers. He reached up with his hands, his… gauntlets? And lifted the helmet away.

Inside, the armor was hollow. It looked absurd, like a special effect from a movie.

He tilted forward. There was a red symbol drawn into the neck of the armor and peered at it curiously until he came to the realisation that it was drawn in blood.

The symbol was all there was of him left. It looked like something Steve might recognise from his dad’s old alchemy books but of course it wasn’t. It was his soul mark.

The knowledge crept in quietly but all at once it was there. Bucky had done this to him.


	3. A Complete Life

**Bucky**

_One Week_

It took a week for him to find out. He'd been out of the hospital and his arm was healing okay. So far he'd managed not to let it get infected or to scratch too much at the healing skin but sometimes he turned in his sleep without meaning to.

He was feeling twitchy and irritable. He figured it must be time for a pain pill, and headed for the kitchen to get water.

The figure sitting on the floor made him jump ten feet before he realised it was Steve. Steve was hunched in on himself as much as the armour would allow, which wasn't much with all of its spikes and angles.

He wasn't moving and his red eyes were glowing faintly in the dark, staring straight ahead.

“Steve?” the armour didn't move.

“Stevie?” Bucky rapped on the side of Steve's stomach.

Steve's mask swivelled round and those red eyes stared impassively.

“You're scaring me.”

“Sorry, I thought you were asleep.”

“Do you do this every night?”

Steve's silence was enough of a yes that Bucky came round and sat himself down beside him on the floor.

Getting Steve to talk was always a waiting game.

“I don't know what you want me to say,” Steve said at last.

“I want you to tell me you haven't been spending every night like this, just sitting here while everyone was sleeping.”

“I tried reading at first but keeping a lamp on meant we were running out of gas twice as fast and candles aren't all that cheap. I went out after that but it draws a lot of attention walking around like this and guys would try and pick fights and it's not like when I was alive, I could hurt someone for real.”

“What do you mean when you were alive? Of course you're alive,” Bucky didn't mean to sound angry, he didn't mean for it to come out so loud.

“No you’re right, I should stop moping around like this.”

“No! No, Steve I-”

“It's just that it’s harder at night. I get so tired but I can't sleep and my eyes don’t close and I promise it's just as comfortable on the floor as on the bed - I fit more easily on the floor.”

Bucky took in Steve's hunched over shoulders and the way the red lights where his eyes should have been were scanning the room over and over.

“Steve?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you,” Bucky swallowed, “do you wish I hadn't done it?”

The silence was heaviest in the dark and eventually Steve gave his answer, of a kind.

“I wanted to be with my ma,” Steve said, and his voice was so small. “I thought I would get to see her again.”

It didn't matter that he must have known the answer. Of course Steve had thought about his mother. Hadn't Steve always been sure to say his prayers? Hadn't he spent all that time when they were children tracing over the latin with his stubby fingers, sounding it out as best he could?

Somehow it was still a revelation, Bucky’s own impossible selfishness.

Bucky remembered the gate, the dizzying sprawl of knowledge inside, the strange creature he had seen. Maybe there wasn't a God like the one Steve had told Bucky about from Sunday school, but there wasn't nothing. Bucky had dragged Steve's soul from somewhere when he stuffed it into the armour.

Steve hadn't wanted to die, but he'd made as much peace as he could, and Bucky had stolen it from him. Not only that but he'd stolen any chance of peace at all. Steve couldn't even sleep and that was Bucky's fault.

Bucky's non-existent arm gave a twinge made him think of his Mark, which had vanished with his arm.

“I didn't know this would happen, I thought it would just make you better again,” Bucky whispered.

“I know Buck.”

Bucky wanted to say he was sorry but he couldn't. Steve was right here when he could have been gone. And Steve wouldn’t want to hear a lie like that, anyway.

* * *

**Bucky**

_One Month_

Kissing Steve was like kissing a penny, the metal taste almost burned his tongue.

Steve smelled of sharp metal and oil and the leather palms of his gloves and Bucky was pathetically grateful.

“I need you,” Bucky said, his whole body shaking with it. The truest thing he’d ever managed to say.

Steve’s hands didn't wander any more; he never seemed to want to touch Bucky’s bare skin, but his metal fingers came  up to grip Bucky’s thighs through his clothes as Bucky lowered himself into Steve's lap.

“Show me,” Steve said, that strange echoing quality in his voice made Bucky tremble a little. 

Bucky unbuttoned his slacks and pulled himself out. He felt himself twitch in his own hand, unbearably grateful just to have that voice, to have something, anything of Steve. 

A thin bubble of precum leaked from his slit. He ran his fingers down to his balls and rolled them in his hand, almost too sensitive to touch, riding a line between good and too much.

“You look so good,” Steve told him, “so pretty like that.” 

Bucky felt himself flush down to his toes. He was used to being the talkative one, since Steve was pretty easily distracted once he started feeling good. 

“Lick your hand,” Steve said, “get your fingers wet.” 

Bucky sucked obscenely on his fingers and gave a lingering swipe of his tongue over the palm of his hand. It still had some of that metallic tang still in it from touching Steve. 

“Stroke yourself slowly,” Steve said, and Bucky obliged, though it was torture to go slow when he was so worked up. 

“Stop,” Steve said, and Bucky took his hand away, he could feel himself twitch and had to fight for breath. 

“Jesus Stevie-” 

“Go,” Steve said, and Bucky did as he was told. He was so close already. 

“Stop,” Steve commanded again and Bucky managed it, this time with a pitiful whining noise that escaped his mouth before he could stop it. 

“You're doing so well,” Steve told him.

 Bucky pressed his hot face against the cool metal of the armour, fighting to breathe. 

“Stevie, please, I can't-” 

“My good boy,” Steve murmured, and even with the echo it was that voice he used to use when he was stroking over Bucky’s Mark and that was pretty much it, Bucky was gone without a finger on him, just thinking of Steve's hands on his soul. 

Bucky reached for him.

“Can I do anything for-” Bucky started to ask but Steve pushed him away. 

“Don't,” Steve said. 

Bucky stopped dead, took his hand back, shifted away. 

“Don't pretend I can… that I can feel things,” Steve said. His red eyes flicked away.

“Okay, no pretend, I get it,” Bucky had been aiming for lighthearted but it came out tiny, like a little kid. 

“Sorry Buck, didn't mean to make you feel bad.”

“You hear me complaining?” Bucky said, putting in twice as much effort and sounding at least kind of normal. 

Steve's red eyes looked straight at him and Bucky the pity in them made him feel for the first time what he guessed Steve had felt his whole life.

How had Steve ever coped with a look like that? How many times had he seen it on Bucky's face while he was sick, or lying in a ditch with a split lip, or when a girl looked straight through him? 

He was starting to suspect that he had done something unforgivable.

* * *

_One Year_

“What do you want, human?” the creature asked. Its body was more of an idea than a real thing. Bucky could feel his own heart race against his ribs, his knees felt weak.

“I want his body back.”

“No you don't,” said the creature. It looked like a man. Like the outline of a man.

Bucky remembered it from the first time.

“I…” Bucky couldn't say anything to that. He was a crappy liar anyway.

The creature seemed pleased, and it pissed Bucky off no end.

“You're right,” he said, channeling his inner Steve as much as he could. “You're right, I don't want it. But Steve wants it, and I want him to get what he needs even if-” he couldn't finish the sentence.

“Even if he dies?”

Bucky couldn't say yes but he managed a nod.

“And what will you give me in exchange?”

Bucky hesitated a moment.

“Whatever you want,” he said at last. “You can have my alchemy, if you want” - he pointed to the door behind him - “or the rest of my body. My soul, my life, my memories, whatever you want you can have it. There's really not… when he dies…” Bucky sucked in a sharp breath and found that he was almost in tears. He pressed on. “All the things I care about go when he does,” he said at last.

“You are so young,” the thing said, “why are they are always so young? This gate only sends me children.”

“I think we're the only ones dumb enough to try,” Bucky said.

The thing laughed, and it was not an entirely unkind laugh.

“This is my offer,” the thing said. “Behind you is a gate. You have been through it once already, and learned a great many things. If you step through again, you will know how to get anything you want, anything you might ask me for.”

Bucky could feel the great eye of the gate upon him and it sent a sick feeling right through to his gut.

“Is there another way?” he asked.

“Why should there be?”

“Alchemy got me here in the first place, that and my own stupidity,” Bucky said. “I don't think it can help.”

“What else is there?”

“I don’t know, I just don’t think Steve would want me to make that kind of deal,” he said.

“But he'd want you to give up your own body? Your own life?”

Bucky stared down at his boots. There were thin scuff marks on the toes, and the laces were just starting to fray.

“No… no I guess he wouldn't. Actually, I promised not to offer any of those things.”

"But you did it anyway.”

“Yes.”

“Then open the gate,” the thing said.

“I can't.”

“You're pathetic.”

Bucky didn't bother to deny it. The creature looked at him for another moment.

“I love him,” Bucky said. He'd never said it before, not even really to Steve. “But I shouldn't have… I shouldn't have done this to him. It was a mistake.”

“Other people have been in love. Other people cared for their loved ones as they died, and accepted it, but I suppose you were too special to be like those humans?”

“All I've ever been was a human,” Bucky said, “I’m not special. I couldn't save Steve when he was sick and I couldn’t fix what I did to him either. I should have let him go and I know it, and I’m sorry-” Bucky took a deep and shuddering breath, trying to keep himself from crying.

“I’m so sorry,” Bucky said, feeling his face get hot and the tears force their way out despite how hard he tried to blink them back. “I didn't want to be alone.” He stared down at the place his arm had been.

“You think you are half a person,” the creature said, “And you make it true. My price is that you must make yourself whole. I will accept nothing less than a complete life.”

There was nothing to be said to that, it was madness. A soulmate was supposed to be the thing that completed you, how could Bucky ever be more than half of that? Hell, he wasn't sure he was even half. Steve was the thing that made Bucky real.

“I'm not sure how to give you that,” Bucky said.


	4. The Old Bum Ticker

**Bucky**

_Now_

White light that seemed to be coming from everywhere. The ground was shaking and the walls were shifting and Bucky couldn't stop thinking about the tons of stone above him, about the bright shock of pain in his chest, the pain in his chest.

The gun wobbled in Bucky’s hand as he stared into the armour’s glowing red eyes.

“Pick on someone your own size.”

The armour turned. Steve’s yellow hair was sticking up all over like a dandelion and his face was flushed like he’d been running flat out.

“I'm not fighting a runt like you,” the armour said.

“Too bad,” said Steve, and clapped his hands.

The air seemed to buzz and there was that familiar alchemical smell like ozone as Bucky watched Steve and the suit of armour collide in a shower of sparks.

Finding another soul trapped in a suit of armour had been a surprise. Splitting up to track the armour had been monumentally stupid it turned out, especially when that suit of armour contained the soul of an infamous murderer who had lured Bucky into the depths of an underground facility armed with a meat cleaver

There was a loud thunk and a high pitched squeal and the alchemic light dimmed, then went out.

“Steve?” Bucky said, trying to keep the fear and the pain out of his voice.

Bucky heard the scrape of the armour’s blade over the stone floor.

“Stevie?”

Something moved close to him and Bucky bought his hand up to protect his face.

“I'm over here!” Steve called out and Bucky heard the blade again.

“Run!” Bucky yelled into the dark and there was a swish and a clatter and another brilliant flash of light so bright Bucky had to shut his eyes and blink until the bright spots cleared.

When his eyes adjusted the first thing Bucky could see were the walls, which were covered in spines that pierced the armour through on both sides, trapping it.

Steve was standing next to Bucky and holding the blade, which he had managed to steal somehow in the scuffle. His body was drenched in sweat and his skin was waxy and pale from a flu he was only just recovering from but he was smiling a little, holding the heavy weapon in his skinny arms.

Then his eyes caught sight of Bucky's chest, the blood that matted his shirt, and his eyes went wide.

“Let's get you the hell out of here,” Steve said.

Bucky couldn't agree more.

* * *

 

_Then_

  
Steve’s body was emaciated and his breaths came tiny and feeble, barely there at all. He was naked and the skin hung off him like a cheap coat.

“Hey,” Bucky said, pulling Steve into his arms, “hey there sweetheart.”

“Bucky,” Steve's voice was a faint croak, “you saved me.”

Bucky couldn't move. The creature’s words still rang in his head.

“I can feel you,” Steve said. “I can feel my heart beating, it's so loud.”

“Glad to have the old bum ticker back?”

“Yes,” Steve sounded like he might weep with joy.

Bucky took his hand and pressed it to the soul mark on the back of Steve's neck, feeling the gut-punch sweetness of it. Steve wouldn't get to touch his mark again, but that didn't mean he couldn't do it for Steve.

The last time they'd done that must have been so casual. Must have been almost nothing. Now Bucky was clinging to the feeling with all his might, trying to burn it into his memory, to carve it into himself.

“Ohh,” Steve breathed, “wow I missed that.”

“Me too.”

Bucky couldn't not kiss him. It was impossible not to. Steve's mouth tasted kind of sour, like he hadn't cleaned his teeth in a good long while, and the wet softness was strange after so long with cold metal. He could feel Steve breathing, his trembling joy,

“I'm so sorry Stevie,” Bucky said, kissing Steve's sweat-damp hair.

“It's okay.”

“I shouldn't have-”

“Really.”

“But I-”

“Bucky,” Steve caught Bucky’s palm up to his mouth and kissed it. “Thank you.”

“Oh.”

“Now for God's sake get me off this floor and give me something to drink my mouth tastes like something died.”

Bucky gave a mocking salute and took him to their bed. He bundled Steve in under the blankets and headed for the kitchen.

He made Steve's coffee the way he remembered it, strong enough to stand a spoon in and as much sugar as they could afford, and then made himself a cup because why not.

He climbed into bed and the two of them sipped their coffee together. It was spring outside but the rain hadn't let up yet. Bucky could hear the wind rushing between the tenement blocks and the percussive rattle raindrops against the window.

Neither of them spoke, occasionally blowing over the tops of their coffee cups to cool them down. When it got bearable to drink Bucky drained his in deep, bitter-tasting sips - he'd given his share of the sugar to Steve - and lay down on his side.

Steve finished drinking and the two curled up together in the rainy afternoon. The soft warmth of the bed and the rhythm of the rain and Steve's shaky but stubborn breaths meant that even with the coffee in him he was asleep before he knew it.


End file.
